The Winds of Time
by whofics
Summary: There was a man called the Doctor. He walked through the years and saved countless lives along his journey. And all around him, hidden between the ticks of the clock, a secret war raged. A war between the oldest evil in the universe and a young woman who soared through the winds of time like a leaf on an autumn day...
1. Chapter 1: Foreman's Best Employee

**_KAAAA-SCREEEASH!_**

Another explosion rocked the TARDIS and knocked the Doctor to the ground. Susan managed to regain her balance and pulled her grandfather up to the console.

"Grandfather, we need to find a way to cool down the chrono-stabalizers!" she shouted over the TARDIS' engines which screamed out in anguish as the ship flew over and over through empty space, "if we don't we'll leak retro-causality paradoxes all over the time stream!"

"Yes, yes, child! I'm doing my best!" the Doctor shouted and began fiddling with the assorted switches and knobs on the TARDIS' console.

"Let me help!" Susan ran her fingers across the primary Time-engines and began the process of releasing fusion waves from the Eye of Rassilon.

"Susan! Don't touch anything! Any mistake could be catastrophic for us!"

"Grandfather, I've actually read the TARDIS manual, have you?" Susan finished the coding process and the fusion waves eased out of the ship's engines.

The Doctor sputtered, but before he could come up with a response to his granddaughter the familiar sound of the TARDIS dematerializing from space rushed through the TARDIS control room, followed by a soft rumble.

"See my dear?" The Doctor said, "I told you I had it completely-"

The TARDIS went into a sudden free fall after dematerializing a few hundred feet above the Earth's surface. Susan climbed off the TARDIS floor and dusted herself off, her grandfather was not as fortunate.

"Grandfather!" she shouted. Susan rested her head against his chest. She listened closely. _Nothing wrong with his bi-cardio system_, she thought to herself, _and no regenerative energy is emitting from his body. _

She poked her head out of the box of the TARDIS to make sure they at least landed in the correct century this time.

London, Earth, 1963. They made it. Or at least, somewhere close to "it."

A loud car horn startled Susan.

"Oi! Get that soddin' thing out of the road!"

"Oops!" Susan shouted back, "Apologies! So sorry!"

She rushed back in and began to activate the craft's dematerialization when she noticed a countdown on the TARDIS' systems monitor. Above the countdown were the words "demateriazer circuit reconstruction in progress, one moment please."

Susan resisted the temptation to give the console a good whack in frustration, but she stopped herself and took a few deep breaths. _That's what grandfather would probably be doing at this moment_, she thought to herself. However, it was becoming more and more difficult to stay calm with all the car horns blaring outside the extraterrestrial roadblock. Then came thing that made Susan the most frustrated and surprised of all...a knock on the door.

Expecting to encounter an outraged motorist, Susan rehearsed her most intimidating scowl in a nearby mirror. She thought about how her grandfather looked when staring down Genghis Khan, or the Terrible Techno Tyrant. But what Susan found on the other side of the door was something quite different.

"'Ello!" the friendly faced woman at the door said, "you folks look like you could use a lift!"

Susan stood in the doorway of the TARDIS and did her best to hide the spectacular feat of transdimensional enginnering that was right behind her. The woman wore a dark workman's jumpsuit and a pair of boots so large, she couldn't believe they fit on this woman's feet at all. Her hair was tied up and hidden beneath a blue cap that read "Foreman's Yard."

"Oh! You work for Foreman's?"

"Sure do," the friendly woman said with a smile, "I'm the best bloody mechanic they got too. And standing orders are that if we see this big blue box in danger, we stop what we're doing and help. Wanna gimme a hand with this chain?"

"Oh, I would, could you just give me a moment?" Susan ran back inside the TARDIS. She could hear her grandfather moaning as he slowly tried to get up from the floor.

"Careful, grandfather, careful!" she gently lifted his arm around her neck and took him to his bed room.

"Thank you...my-my child...I'll think I'll just...rest awhile..."

Susan smiled and gave her grandfather a gentle kiss on the forehead. When she walked out of the TARDIS, the ship was already sitting comfortably on the flatbed of the Foreman's Yard truck.

"How did you get it up here so quickly?" Susan asked the mechanic.

"I told you," she said, "best bloody mechanic Foreman's got! Name's Clara by the way."

"Mine is Susan, very nice to meet you."

The two took off in the truck back to the junkyard.

"Where are you from anyway, Susan?"

"Oh, far...far away from here."

"Really? You don't sound like you're from very far away."

"Oh, well that probably has a lot to do with the translation matrix."

"I feel as though I was supposed to understand that sentence, but I honestly don't..."

Susan suddenly realized she let one of her secrets slip. It was difficult being on a planet where so few people knew about five dimensional mathematics or liquified psychic novels. She was finding her adjustment to this simpler world surprisingly, and ironically, difficult. She stared up at the stars above her and wondered if any of them were Gallifrey. She knew this was ridiculous, of course, but maybe there was a chance that one of them...

"Does it seem darker out to you?" Clara asked.

Susan glanced around and noticed that the once crowded street was, with the exception of the Foreman's truck, suddenly barren.

"The roads do seem very empty all of a sudden. Is that bad?"

"No," Clara said with a quiver of anxiety in her voice, "not bad. Probably. No. Definitely. Nothing bad here."

The headlights slowly illuminated a figure miles ahead. It was a man dressed in a dark overcoat and top hat. He stood as still as a granite statue against a hurricane.

"Do you know him?" Susan asked.

"Kinda, I feel like I do. I've never met him...but he feels like the devil, and birthday clowns, and the worst ex you've ever had all rolled into one."

Susan had no idea what calling this man an "x" had to do with their situation. He certainly had nothing to with Greek and Roman alphabet, and he definitely had nothing to do with the mathematical variable that could change within the equation.

"I'm going to do something that will seem very bad, but I just need you to trust me here, okay?"

"I'm not-"

Clara shifted the truck into the next gear. The wheels pushed on against the London streets moving closer and closer to the wicked man in dark clothes. He continued to stare at the women in the truck, unfazed by the tons of steel heading straight for him. The truck and the man collided, but instead of blood or internal organs smeared across the road, the man vanished in a mist dissipated into the night sky."

"Who was that?!" Susan asked.

"Bad news," Clara answered.

When they returned to the junkyard, Susan snuck back through the TARDIS doors as Clara began preparing to lower the blue box back into its place among the scrap heaps. The lights inside the TARDIS were flickering on and off. Strange whispers ran along Susan's skin like ice water. She charged into her grandfather's bed room.

The man in the top hat stood over the Doctor. His arm reaching into the Doctor's chest without any trace of a struggle on behalf of the Time Lord. The Doctor's face was twisted in a silent cry of anguish.

"Get away from him!" Susan shouted.

The man looked at Susan then vanished. Susan backed away, and then felt something behind her.

"The Doctor's kin," the man sneered, "no doubt you'll become as much of an intergalactic nuisance as this simpering old fool someday."

"What are you?" Susan slowly shifted around the man and bumped into the TARDIS.

"I am everywhere and I am nowhere. I was born when this universe came screaming into existence and I shall remain so long as there is hate in the heart of living things," with a dapper wave of his arm, the man removed his top hat and bowed, "I am the Great Intelligence. And you should be honored to have your life extinguished by me."

Susan tried to avoid the grasp of the man, but tripped and fell to the ground.

"Pathetic," the man sneered, "you're as incompetent as that decrepit geriatric."

"For someone called the 'Great' Intelligence, you certainly aren't bright," Susan reached up beneath the console and removed a hidden laser pistol which she fired into the stomach of her attacker. The ethereal creature burst once again and was carried off by the air. The TARDIS door opened at that moment and Clara ran in carrying a massive wrench.

"Susan what happened-?"

Clara looked around stunned.

"It's...it's big-"

The Great Intelligence reformed and grabbed Clara by the throat.

"Incredible," he muttered, "how many times will we meet along this time stream? You will not stop me from taking my-"

Clara swung the wrench and struck the Great Intelligence across the jaw, twisting his entire head 180 degrees. The creature released Clara and grabbed itself by the neck. I then twisted its head back into place with the sound of thick liquid shaking in a glass container. Susan held her laser pistol at the ready. With her eyes she signaled toward a second bedroom right behind Clara. Clara nodded quickly and sprinted towards the door. Susan fired shot after shot to herd the Great Intelligence toward her trap. Clara made it into the room, and the Great Intelligence followed, appearing from nowhere right in front of the door. Clara gripped her wrench tightly, ready to attack.

"Please, do try to strike me again. I'm beginning to find the futility of this quite amusing. In fact, I will allow you to feebly strike me once more before I end your life."

Clara took a deep breath and she hoped silently that this incredibly stupid idea might just work. With the fury of a lion, she charged and jumped at the Great Intelligence, flew through his intangible body, and rolled back into the TARDIS' main control room. Susan quickly pressed a button on the control panel.

"_Secondary bedroom, deleted._" a voice in the TARDIS said.

The Great Intelligence's eyes went wide as he vanished along with the entire bedroom. The two women fell to the ground laughing over their victory.

"Well," Clara said, "remember to tell Foreman what a great job I did."

"I will," Susan said, "thank you for everything."

Clara walked through the doors of the TARDIS. The next morning, on her way to school, Susan saw a newspaper headline that stole her attention. A massive crash occured in the middle of the city. A junkyard truck was involved. The driver was killed. Susan didn't need to read anymore, and she went to school that day with a sadder heart than usual.

That was the last time Clara would ever see Susan...but it wouldn't be the last time she saw the Doctor...


	2. Chapter 2: Siege of the Yeti

"Jamie! Hurry! Get that door open!"

The Doctor and Zoe ran through the underwater tunnel only a few feet ahead of their bulky, hairy pursuers. A thick, translucent slab of aluminum was the only thing separating the Doctor and his companions from the alien ocean of Europa. Sea creatures that glowed with a unique luminescence, swam around the tunnel, making the base seem as though it were a part of a spectacular aquarium. Some moved with rotating fins, some crawled along the tunnel with pickaxe shaped claws that allowed them to move along Europa's outer layer of ice, some spun through the ocean with tentacles that moved like bicycle spokes.

However, with a pack of Yeti hunting them, the wayward travelers of the TARDIS had no time to take in the sights.

Jamie grunted as he struggled to pry open the circular door at the end of the hall, "This thing weighs more than stack a' boulders!"

The door managed to open enough to let a sliver of light through from the next room, but it wouldn't budge an inch further. Zoe pushed herself into a sprint and dove through the slim opening in the door. The weight of the door knocked the crowbar out of Jamie's hands, stranding the Doctor and Jamie outside.

"Doctor!" Zoe's shouted through the door, "there's a control panel here! I'll have the door open in a moment!"

"Good, Zoe! Good! We'll...erm...well we'll try to hold them off."

"Darn right we will!" Jamie scooped up the crowbar and hurled it right into the face of one of the robotic menaces. Sparks flew from its eyes, burning the fur on its head. It fell down with a metal clang, oozing a thick, black liquid.

"Very good, Jamie," the Doctor said with a sigh, "now what do we do about the rest?"

"Ah, well, we could...um..."

"Doooooccccctoooorrrrr" a whisper that sounded like metal scraping against metal seemed to come from the air, "eeeessscaaapppeeee is impossible!"

"Jamie, if we don't find someway to stop the Great Intelligence, he will burrow into this moon and make it an extension of his unspeakably malicious consciousness!"

"Aye! I know! Ya tryin' ta make me feel worse?!"

"No, well, I think better out loud..."

The once stuck door opened with a hiss. Zoe pulled her friends inside to safety. One of the Yeti reached in just as Zoe slammed her fist against the control panel to shut the door. The door ripped the robotic arm from its body. The arm suddenly popped up on its fingers and crawled, like a spider, across the floor, then jumped up and grabbed Jamie by the throat.

"_Gaaaak!" _Jamie shouted as the impossibly strong limb squeezed his throat.

"Jamie! Throw me your knife!" the Doctor shouted.

With his face slowly turning red, Jamie pulled his knife from his belt and tossed it to the Doctor. The Doctor pried the control panel off of the door.

"Zoe, which of these can I cut and still keep the door closed?"

"Any damage to the wiring will eventually open the doors, but the blue wires will give us the most time before-"

The Doctor quickly cut a pair of red wires and a green one. He pulled two of the split wires together, creating a blue streak of electric energy.

"Perfect!" he shouted, "Jamie! Come here, hurry!"

Jamie stumbled over to the Doctor with his neck still trapped in the vice-like grip of the Yeti. The Doctor plunged the two wires into the exposed circuits of the arm. An electric buzz shook the metal and caused the arm to let go of Jamie, when it fell to the ground it began to spasm and twist until finally it collapsed, smoking, and harmless. Jamie took deep breaths between coughs.

"Are you alright, Jamie?" the Doctor asked, patting the lad on the back.

"Aye, ya really took yer time didn't ya?!"

The Doctor and Zoe looked at one another.

"He's fine," they said together.

"Now, Zoe," the Doctor said while inspecting the room which was a fairly simple laboratory with the exception of an odd, human-sized glass cylinder that sat on the far side of the room, "how long do you believe we have until that door opens?"

"At least an hour," she said "you cut the power to the primary locking mechanism. Without it, the secondary ones will eventually fail and-"

A small drop of water struck Zoe in the eye.

"That's odd," the Doctor said with a hint of fear.

He looked up and saw a man dressed all in black with a top hat standing in the ocean on the top of the dome. Inexplicably he was able to breath under the water. He removed his hat in greeting to the Doctor, then traced a jagged line along the dome with his cane. He gave the dome a gentle tap, and line became a crack in the dome. Water began to pour into the dome, slowly filling the room.

"What do we do now?" Jamie asked.

"Well," the Doctor said, trying to stay calm for his young friends, "now we improvise!"

Fathoms below the Doctor, in the central control room of Poseidon Base-3, alarms were blaring and driving the central operator insane. Well, she wasn't _quite _the central operator yet. She had been training for nearly six months now. The central operator of this type of base had to be able to manage every system for when the crews went on full away missions to study the planet. And, of course, today was the day the base was under siege by a pack of killer robot Yetis.

Clara rubbed her temples slowly. She blocked out all thoughts of those who would say that she was promoted too soon, she was too young to be given such a responsibility. The thoughts and opinions of others were easy to ignore, but the voices that whispered in her head saying _"you can't do this," "you're not good_ _enough" _were like a deafening roar, the minute that funny little man and his blue box appeared on the station, she had this uncanny feeling that everything was going to work out.

She had tried to contact him, but the communications systems had been damaged by the Yeti. All she could do at this point was try and slow the monsters and help the Doctor find his way back to his ship. She had managed to seal off most of the corridors to prevent them from getting any closer to the trio of strangers. The high pitched screech of the internal leak alarm made Clara quickly looked through every monitor until she found the flooding compartment. Her fingers dashed across the key-screen and activated the flood tunnels and the resealing bots. The water began to drain out of the room, but only one resealing bot remained undamaged, and it would take him hours to close off the gap. She had to take the chance that the pair knew how to operate a T-Mat.

The Doctor watched as the spiraling water was sucked into the steel pipe.

"Doctor, did ye do that?" Jamie asked.

"No, no I didn't. I didn't even realize that the drainage pipes would be functioning...something tells me we've got an ally in this base," the Doctor searched around and found what he believed to be a small camera near the door.

"Thank you very much, whoever you are!" the Doctor said smiling into the device, "now, I assume you realize the entire base is under attack at the moment. There is a terrible creature that is trying to burrow into the center of this moon. We must stop him. He is located in subbasement-F. If you can draw the Yeti away from that room while we search for a way down there-"

Before the Doctor could finish speaking, the glass cylinder began to admit an electric hum.

"I should have recognized this before!" the Doctor said while looking at the device, "it's a localized T-Mat system! A smaller version of the kind we saw when we battled the Ice Warriors. Instead of sending you from planet to planet or to different countries, it can be used in emergencies as an escape device. I better go first..."

The Doctor stepped through the tube and vanished.

After shutting off several safety protocols, Clara managed to divert the flow of the drainage pipes right into the sub basement. The Doctor appeared just before the water began to flood in.

"If you can hear me," the Doctor whispered, "send Jamie and Zoe back to my ship. I don't want them risking their lives."

Clara nodded silently and altered the T-Mat's destination to hub-A of the base. The Doctor saw five Yeti all surrounding a massive drill that was gradually working its way into the center of the moon. Clutched in the claws of one of the Yeti was an ivory pyramid that glowed gently.

"Yeeessssssss," the hideous whisper slid out of the pyramid and poisoned the air around it with its wickedness, "thissss is the begiiiiing...I will becomeeeee the universeeeeee itseeeellfffff."

"Excuse me!" the Doctor shouted, the Yeti turned their head to look at their foe "I thought it only fair to warn you that there's a bit of a flood coming in."

The Doctor grabbed hold of a metal bar and braced himself for the explosion of ocean that came rushing into the basement. The pack of Yeti fell over under the miniature tidal wave. The Doctor swam through the current and snatched the ivory pyramid from the slowly malfunctioning claws of the Yeti.

"Doooocctttoooooorrr!" the voice hissed with an insane fury, "I sweeeeeeear by all the power I posssseessss I shalllll rid myself of yoooou!"

"Yes, well, you'll have plenty of time to think about how to do that. Until we meet again!"

The Doctor through the pyramid into the barely functioning T-Mat as Clara set the destination for the nearest sun. The Doctor swam inside and prayed that his atoms wouldn't be disintegrated in the trip.

Jamie paced back and forth in front of the TARDIS, while Zoe stood still, keeping her mind in deep thought. She was trying to determine how long before they had to accept the inevitable fact that maybe the Doctor wasn't...it was too awful to even hypothetically consider.

"I can't believe he did that!" he shouted.

"He was only looking out for us, Jamie," Zoe tried to reason.

"Aye, but we're the ones who're supposed to look after him!"

The Doctor appeared as a blurry vision in the T-MAT.

"Ja-i-! Zo-!" he shouted and vanished again.

"Doctor!" Zoe rushed over to the T-Mat. She ripped open the circuitry of the machine, "his sub-atomic structure is having trouble rebuilding itself. I'm going to have to do it manually."

"You're gonna to do what to the Doctor's what?"

"It's a very simple process, Jamie," Zoe said as she began to rearrange wires and circuits, "when I was little, I used to spend all my time doing billion-piece puzzles that had pieces which were no bigger than most atoms."

"Oh, aye, yeah, real simple..."

Clara watched with her hands folded. _Please let this work_, she thought to herself.

Slowly, the Doctor came back into focus and then, with a slight pop, he became completely solid. Jamie hugged the Doctor and then gave him a punch in the arm.

"Don't leave us behind like that again! Ye need us, Doctor!"

The Doctor laughed as he rubbed his arm.

"Yes, it's a lesson I won't soon forget again, Jamie," he looked at Zoe, "excellent work my dear, I do believe all my atoms are exactly where I left them."

"Well, of course they are, Doctor, I put them there myself."

The Doctor searched around for one of the nearby cameras.

"And thank you, whoever you may be!" he said, "we must be off, but I hope someday I can repay you!"

_You will, _Clara thought to herself. She didn't know how, but she knew it was true. She felt the water around her ankles. A part of her was glad that the Doctor didn't need to know that in order to flood the sub-basement and stop the drill, she had to flood her chamber as well.

_No way out now_, she thought to herself. The water was rising faster and faster.

_You were the youngest central operator in the history of interstellar colonization. _The water was approaching her shoulders.

_And today, you saved the universe! _Her head was completely submerged. The murky, muffled sound of water filled her ears. It was oddly peaceful.

_Clara Oswald. Savior of the Universe. How cool is that?_


	3. Chapter 3: Private Oswald

It was a sunny June morning. The cool air came wafting through the open window of the flat. A Beatles song played on the radio.

The year was 1972. Today was Clara Oswald's first day at UNIT.

After practicing her salute in the mirror, she neatly arranged a few loose strands of hair beneath her beige beret and delicately adjusted the attached UNIT pin. Smoothing out the creases along her regulation uniform, she couldn't help but think to herself "they don't actually expect me to fight extraterrestials in this skirt, do they?"

She arrived at UNIT headquarters shortly before 0800 hours. Her orders for the day were to simply report to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and to make certain she was not followed by anyone. The secrecy seemed a bit much to her, but they were battling all sorts of alien menances, so maybe the secrecy was somewhat important.

_Extraterrestrials _she thought to herself _have to start calling them 'extraterrestrials'_.

The only thing she knew about the Brigadier was his distingushable mustache would be the key to identifying him. She looked around through the wandering packs of men in beige military uniforms, but found nothing except discrete, unmarked doors.

"Pardon," she said to one of the soldiers, who simply kept walking.

"Excuse me," she repeated to another deaf soldier.

"Oi, meathead!" she shouted, still no response.

"Are you new here?" a gentle woman's voice said from behind her, "because if you are, I can help you out easily!"

The woman with warm, brown eyes and blonde hair. Her smile was overwhelming in its warmth. It was impossible for Clara to not feel an instant friendship with this woman.

"Jo Grant, pleased to meet you!" she said, extending her hand.

"Private Oswald," she replied, "was it that obvious that I'm new here?"

"Only a little," Jo said with a friendly laugh,"I've been here for a few years, but I'm being tranferred to a new department. Who are you looking for?"

"Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, could you direct me to his office?"

"Ah, that's an easy one, second door on the left just past the lift."

"Thanks a bunch, and good luck with your transfer."

"Thanks, I might need it. This must be some sort of typo on the transfer notice, but all it says is that I'm working for someone named 'Doctor.' Doctor who? There's hundreds of Doctors here!"

Those two little words made the hairs on the back of Clara's neck stand at attention.

"Strange," she whispered.

Jo went on her way and Clara found the second door on the left just past the lift. It was locked. "Great," she said out loud and gave the door a frustrated kick, "just terrific!"

"Did you consider knocking?" A stern voice said from behind the door. With a creak, the door slowly opened, revealing a tall man with a thin, flawlessly trimmed mustache beneath his nose.

"Private Oswald, I presume?" he said with a raised eyebrow.

"Ah, yes," she suddenly threw her hand to her forehead in salute.

"At ease, private, the time for formality has passed. Have a seat."

Clara sat in the surprisingly uncomfortable chair across from the Brigadier's desk.

"Now then, private. What is it that you believe we do here at UNIT?" Clara thought for a minute. Was this a test? How much was she supposed to know?

"Um, we, fight, ali-extraterrestials?"

"No," the Brigadier tersely replied.

"No?"

"No, officially, on the record, we're merely a part of the weather service. But off the record? Unofficially? You're absolutely correct. But I didn't call you in here to quiz you, I came in here to inform you about some harsh truths. Many of my contemporaries objected to having a woman, especially one your age, joining our ranks here. They would have had their way too, if I hadn't been so...persuasive."

"Thank you, sir."

"Thanks aren't necessary, private, you were the most qualified, gender has nothing to do with the knowledge in a person's mind. But remember, there are people here who will make it their job to remind you of your gender, just as I will make sure to completely ignore it. Understand my meaning?"

"Yes, sir." Clara said with a smile. Before Clara exited the office, she needed to say one more thing, "sir," she began, "if my gender is being ignored, why am I still being paid a dollar less per hour than the men?"

The Brigadier smiled, quite impressed.

"I'll have to put my powers of persuasion to work on this terrible injustice."

The weeks went by and Clara adapted well to the agency. She had been instrumental in unraveling the secret plot of the Animus invasion, and uncovering the disappearance of Mrs. Colby's missing azalea bushes, which had, obviously, gained sentience and began an attempted ecological revolution.

One morning, Clara was wandering on her way back from the mess hall, when she passed by a pair of doors that she had, inexplicably, never seen before. She gently nudged the door open to take a peek inside.

A musty laboratory stood before her. Books and papers were scattered about, as if they had been arranged by a kook. In the corner of the room, the dust was in the outline of a perfect square. In that perfect square, was a glowing sphere. Clara moved closer to take a look at the strange orb. She reached down to pick it up, but it was unspeakably heavy. Within the sphere, an infinite darkness seemed to suck in the light around it.

"Event horizon," a voice suddenly filled the room, "is the moment within a black hole wherein the pull of gravity is so strong that it makes escape completely impossible."

A man all in black and a top hat appeared before Clara. His face was devoid of any emotion or feeling, but there was an aura of hatred and wickedness that flowed from his body and filled the air like smog.

"That sphere is a weaponized version of this phenomenon. In a moment, the Time Lords will return the Doctor's TARDIS to this spot. The dwarf star shell will crack. He will be sucked into the endless void of a black hole and be ripped asunder. A death that seems almost too merciful for one such as him."

Clara pulled out her handgun and pointed it at the sphere.

"Bad move sharing all that with me, mate."

The gun suddenly dissolved in Clara's hand. The metal fell away as bits of darkness.

"I am…'sharing' this information with you because any attempts to stop me are utterly-"

A scratching sound interrupted the man in black. He looked over Clara's shoulder to see a grenade roll right into the sphere.

"Gotcha," Clara said with a smirk.

The explosion lasted only a moment. Once the sphere had been cracked the darkness sucked Clara and the man into an eternal void that dissolved after a few seconds. There was no evidence of either person ever entering the room.

The TARDIS landed a second later.

All was well.


	4. Chapter 4: A Rose in Bloom

Time is an abstract concept.

Seconds, minutes, hours, were developed by humanity to rationalize the movement from one moment to the next. All species on all planets have their own way of understanding time, their own designations for the increments that mark the passing of sunrise to sunset, from the beginning of life times to their ending.

What is not abstract is the existence of what many refer to as "the time stream." While time itself is open to interpretation, there is the undeniable fact that an action occurs, causing a reaction, and it becomes a fact, also called a fixed point.

All fixed points are not the same, however. Some are more "fixed" than others, it simply depends on how much the time stream is changed from the action and reaction.

Say you spill a glass of milk this morning, and you're so upset about it you've completely ignored the advice you've heard all your life about the proper emotional response to milk spilling. You get into your time machine, fly through the vortex of time, and stop yourself from spilling the milk. You succeed. No harm done. The fixed point has been altered with minimal or even no damage done to the time stream. The action was merely a small pebble thrown in a massive lake, creating just a small ripple. Of course, you could also inadvertently make a thunderous crash when your time machine lands, the same thunderous crash that startled you a few moments earlier and caused you to spill your milk in the first place. This is what quantum physicists call a "grandfather paradox," and beginning to explain it would certainly create a headache for everyone involved.

The types of fixed points that are impossible to change are the types that would cause such a monumental change to what has been true for centuries, it would be impossible for reality to rewrite itself without causing a near total collapse. For example, if you're a centuries old time traveler who has discovered that your future wife is supposed to murder you in Nevada, you can easily avoid altering time by faking your own death after having miniaturized yourself in a robot body that can act as your corpse in a somewhat silly and convoluted, but also stunningly brilliant plan.

But I digress...

Time is an abstract concept. Fixed points cannot be altered or changed. And even if you did try, the universe has many ways of restoring and repairing itself. Whether it is horrible paradox devouring monsters, or a brave woman who was inspired by a hero, time will be restored by someone. Unless you can find a loophole...

The Great Intelligence floated along the ripples of time. Free of a physical form, the creature of personified darkness watched all of the Doctor's life unfold before him.

_The giiiiiiiiiirl...she is everywhere...how do I destrooooooy the Doctor...undo hissssss history...if she is everywhereeeeeee...yeeeesssss...that is hoooooooow. A newwww tactic must beeeee employed._

The year was 1998. Rose Tyler was 12-years old and she was running away from home.

Thick rain drops fell with a pitter-patter tempo on the London streets. Rose sat alone at a bus stop wrapped in a pink poncho. The rain hid the tears on her cheeks.

She didn't mean to get so mad at her mom. She didn't know why her mom always had to yell so loudly at her.

_Haaaaate. She haaaaaaates you._

A voice whispered in Rose Tyler's ear. Rose looked around, but she was still alone.

It made her so mad when Garth picked on Billy Tanner. She finally stood up to him today. She pushed him off the swing and said that if he ever bugged Billy again she'd throw all the rocks she could find at his head. Garth said she had beaver teeth and was the dumbest girl in school. Rose threw a rock at his head.

_Stupiiiiiiiiiid giiiiiiiirl. He's riiiiiiiiight._

Rose clapped her hands over her ears. She hated that voice. She wished it would go away, but it clung to her. It refused to let go. In order to get away, she ran down the street, but the whispers followed her.

_Stttuuuppppiiiidddd giiiiiiiirl. You wooooon't escappppppeeeeee._

With cheeks wet with tears, she stopped to catch her breath.

"Hey, you here for a movie?"

Rose wiped the tears from her eyes and saw the cinema standing before her. In between the two doors was a booth with a glass window. A young woman with an overpowering smile and brunette hair gave Rose a wave.

"We're giving out free tickets today," the woman said, "but only to people who are smiling!"

The obvious attempt to make Rose change her attitude only soured her mood. She wasn't a kid any longer. It would take far more than a stupid movie ticket to make her feel better.

"Ah, did I say only people who are smiling?" the woman said "I meant only people who are mad and upset about something. They're the ones who get free tickets!"

The woman printed out a small red ticket and slide it through he opening in the booth window.

"You ever seen that one?" the woman pointed to a movie poster with a massive grey robot carrying a blonde haired woman in its arms. The title read _The Day the Earth Stood Still_

"It's a classic," the woman explained, "one of my absolute favorites."

Rose took the ticket, still not completely convinced, but willing to let the weird woman change her mind. She giggled at the woman's outfit: a bright blue shirt under a white vest with _St. John's Cinema _scrawled across the right side in white embroidered letters.

"You have to wear that for your job, right?" Rose asked.

"Yeah, it's kinda silly, isn't it?" the woman said.

"Especially the bow tie," Rose said.

The woman's hand reached for the bowtie in a protective way.

"Hey now," the woman said, "bowties are..."

"Dumb!" Rose said with a laugh, and the woman couldn't help but join her.

The movie was better than Rose ever expected. The final words that the strange alien man spoke still bounced around in her head: "The Universe grows smaller every day, and the threat of aggression by any group, anywhere, can no longer be tolerated..."

She looked up at the stars that were slowly beginning to show themselves in the night sky.

"How'd you like it?" the woman was no longer trapped behind the glass of the ticket booth. A red coat covered her work clothes and kept her warm from the damp air.

"It was brilliant," Rose said, "thank you for the ticket."

The odd pair began to walk along the London streets, hoping to avoid any more rain.

"Are you alright?" the woman asked.

"I think so," Rose said, "I...don't really want to go home though?"

"Trouble with mum, or dad?" the woman asked.

"How did you-?"

"I was your age once too. There's only one thing that can get someone your age that upset."

"She just gets so mad sometimes. I don't understand why."

"Something I learned when I was your age is that your mum and dad won't always be there when you want them to be. Sure, they may be standing around you, but once you reach a certain age, it's almost like...you need to take care of them and help them more than they need to take care of you. They start to realize their lives are almost over. They're watching you grow-up quicker than they ever expected. And sometimes they get mad. But, as long as they aren't hurting you in a way that truly isn't right, you can't hold it against them. You're an adult now. What they say or do...it's not as important as it once was."

Rose thought about this for awhile. She didn't know if she was ready to try and be someone so...grown-up.

"That doesn't seem fair. I don't know how to be an adult yet."

"It's not fair," the woman said, she crouched down so she was right at Rose's eye level "but it will still happen. The important thing to remember is that you aren't what your mum says you are, or your dad says, or your school says, or what other kids say. You are who you are and you are the choices you make. Nothing else defines you. It won't be easy. It never is. But running away from a problem never solves it. It just leaves a big mess for someone else to have to clean up."

The woman walked Rose all the way back to her flat.

"I'm sorry I called your bowtie dumb," Rose said.

"S'alright, it didn't bother me at all," the woman rested a hand on Rose's shoulder, "now, I meant what I said. If your mum ever does anything truly terrible to you, I want you to come right back to that theater. It's not running away if it's to protect yourself."

"I will, but I know my mum would never do something like that."

"You're very lucky then," the woman gave Rose one last smile and waved goodbye.

Rose climbed the seemingly endless steps to her apartment. Her mother was sitting on the couch in the upright position. The television was on, and the phone was clutched tightly in her hands. She was still in her work clothes. Rose quitely took off her mother's sneakers, and gently placed her head on a pair of large pillows. She leaned in and gave her mother a kiss.

"Love you, Rose..." she heard her mother say in voice trapped in the realm of dreams.

Rose climbed into her own bed and realized, for the first time in weeks, the horrible voice was finally silent.

Rose never saw the woman again. The loophole had closed. Time ticked onward.


	5. Chapter 5: The Menace of the Daleks

"_PRE-PARE FOR ATTACK PATTERN SIGMA!"_

No matter how often she heard it, Clara could never get used to the shouting. The terrible screams kept her awake at night as she tried to sleep in-

But that wasn't right because she didn't need sleep any more. She tried to ignore it. Tried to not accept the truth, but some part of her was still holding on to her old life.

"_HOLD TO THE PATT-ERN! FIRE ON SI-GHT!"_

She had to hang on though. Her grip on the last pieces of humanity were slipping away from her each and everyday. She couldn't let herself drown in the ocean of hatred that these creatures were beginning to pull her into. She would not become like them.

"_THE DOC-TOR WILL DIE! THE DAAAALEKS WILL BE TRI-UM-PHANT!"_

The Starship Alaska was gone, crashed on some distant planet. It didn't matter any longer. The vitriolic disgust for all things un-Dalek had bubbled within her until it had boiled over her entire mind.

Oswin Oswald was a Dalek.

"Well? What do you think?"

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS' doors and threw his scarf over his shoulder with pride.

"Another flawless landing, wouldn't you say? And right where we wanted to be as well!"

Leela looked around at her surroundings. She had never seen trees that stretched up so high before, they seemed to be holding up the bright purple sky above her head. She breathed in the air which was overwhelmingly fresh. The bright colors of the plants surprised Leela. There were orange branches on red trees with blue and gold leaves. Every color Leela had seen in dreams surrounded and amazed her.

"And this planet is called...Isalno, correct?"

"Er, no. I meant to go to Isalno, but the TARDIS disagreed with me."

"I thought you had said we were where we wanted to be?"

"I did! I never said this was where we were trying to go."

"I am confused..." Leela sometimes wondered if the Doctor was too intelligent to understand, or too stupid to bother listening to.

"Well, Leela, sometimes the places you're trying to get aren't the places you _want _to be, so, although we were trying to get to Isalno, we ended up in someplace far more interesting, and therefore it's the place we _want _to be. Tironus-8."

"But, Doctor," Leela crouched down and ran the purple colored dirt through her fingers, "why did we not just go to Tironus-8 in the first place?"

The Doctor opened his mouth to explain. Paused. Then pointed off into the distance.

"Look! Gulba berries!"

The Doctor picked a few small, triangular berries from a bright blue bush.

"Pop one of these in your mouth, and think about the best meal you've ever had in your life."

Leela took a look at the pink berry for a moment, then quickly threw it into her mouth. She thought about the first boar she had ever killed in her life. Its succulent meat slid from the bones after it had been cooked over their camp's open flame for just the right amount of time. The taste came back to her tongue as if she was 7-years-old and sitting by the fire again, boar leg in hand.

"You can taste it again, can't you?" the Doctor said with his infinite smile.

"It must be magic!" Leela threw another handful of berries into her mouth.

"No, no, not magic, Leela! It's a psychic berry. Matter of fact, this whole planet is a thinking creature."

"The planet is alive?" Leela stopped chewing and looked around, she tried to listen for the planet breathing.

"Well, yes it's alive, but it's not alive in the way _you _think of 'alive.' It thinks and it can react to its surroundings and the mental signals it picks up from people. However, it doesn't breathe, speak, or leave behind waste. It would make a wonderful flatmate, actually."

"How can it think...but not be alive?" Leela wasn't actually interested in an answer, but she didn't want to stop eating the incredible berries.

"Ah, now that is quite the tale. The first colonists of this planet were from another world. An extremely advanced one too. If you look up in the tree tops, you can see the homes they built when they first arrived here."

Leela saw, below the yellow canopy of tree tops, countless circular homes that wrapped themselves around the trees. They were once white, but the passage of time had dimmed their color and orange ivy had slowly begun to tie itself around the homes, hiding them from view.

"The colonists were from the planet Ja'lath. A planet that had become so polluted, the entire population had to wear specialized gas masks in order to breathe. This planet was perfect for the colonists. They loved the clean air, the perfect climate, the impeccable weather. But there was a problem. They didn't believe they could avoid making the same mistakes that decimated their own world, so instead, they became one with the forests, a botanical bond, if you will."

"This is impossible, Doctor."

"Oh, Leela. After all this time you still haven't learned not to use that word 'impossible.' There's nothing less possible than impossible."

A curious sound made the Doctor quickly turned his head. His nostrils flared as he took some large sniffs of the air.

"Leela, do you smell that? That's...impossible," he said, then he noticed Leela's eyes upon him with an eyebrow raised, "did I say 'impossible'? I meant 'highly unlikely.'"

A searing beam of energy blasted through the jungle leaves and straight for the Doctor. In an instant, Leela sprung forward and tackled the Doctor to the ground out of harm's way. She pulled the Doctor up and yanked his arm as they ran into the deep brush away from the location of the blast.

"Daleks. Nothing in the universe can ruin a vacation quicker than Daleks," the Doctor was suddenly struck with an idea, "Leela! Make for the trees! Daleks can't climb!"

Leela released the Doctor's hand and jumped several feet into the hair. Her legs wrapped around the tree and her hands dug deep into the bark like claws. The Doctor quickly tied his scarf around his waist, then through the other end up to Leela. The two escapees scurried up the tree with Dalek energy blasts scorching the plants around them. Once they reached the top of the tree, Leela pried open a small hatch on the bottom of one of the old tree homes left by the colonists. She pulled herself and then the Doctor up through the hatch. Quickly rising to his feet, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and began scanning the doors.

"Leela, can you get this one open for me?"

Leela marched up to the rusted twin doors and gave them a swift kick. The doors burst open to reveal an eclectic collection of weapons ranging from every side imaginable. The Doctor began to gather up as many of the weapons as he could and handed them to Leela.

"They're just like your crossbow. Point and pull. Very simple."

"I want the very large one," Leela said with her eyes growing wider in excitement.

"Oh, those are rubbish," the Doctor said holding up a gun the size of his palm, "but something like this will pack a wallop. Now, we need to prepare."

Leela began strapping the guns to her shoulders and her waist. The Doctor removed his shoes and socks.

"I wonder if they're out there," the Doctor took one of his shoes and through it out the window. It was immediately incinerated by an energy beam.

With Leela covered in enough guns to arm an entire battalion, the Doctor added one more weapon to her arsenal, himself. He took his scarf and wrapped it around himself and Leela over and over and tied into a Gordian knot, one the Doctor had practiced and perfected many, many, many centuries ago.

"Alright, let's talk stra-"

Before the Doctor could finish, Leela charged through the doors and began firing wildly at the Daleks. Explosions rocked the jungle as Leela's blasts incinerated Dalek after Dalek. The Doctor ducked out of the way of the rapidly firing energy beams which barely missed his face several times over. With the Doctor still tied to her back, Leela jumped from the tree, snatched a nearby vine, and swung above the Daleks. With one hand on the vine, and the other still clutching one of her guns, she continued to obliterated any Dalek unfortunate enough to wander into her warpath.

"Leela! Shoot the knot!" the Doctor shouted over the bursting Dalek casings.

"The what?"

"The knot!"

"Not what?!"

"Not not, _the knot!"_

"But you'll fall!"

"Just trust me!"

Leela took a deep breath and fired a low-energy shot at the thick knot. The Doctor went flying into the air, soaring over the Daleks. In unison, the eye stalks of the metallic menaces followed the Doctor's trajectory through the air. Once he hit the ground, the Doctor rolled a few feet, then quickly stood up. He dug his bare feet into the ground as deeply as he could. Then he closed his eyes and began to think.

"_WASTE NO TIME_!" one of the Daleks shouted, "_EX-TER-MIN-ATE THE DOC-TOR ON SIIIIGHT!_"

"Would you mind lowering your voices?" the Doctor asked, as politely as he could manage, "I'm trying to make a phone call."

The Daleks burst through the clearing, the Doctor was surrounded. Before a single Dalek could fire, the grass of the jungle began to wrap itself around the Daleks, locking them in place. Vines flew down from the trees, scooped up a trio of Daleks, and flung them off into the jungle. Roots sprung up the ground and overturned the remaining Daleks. The Doctor, with his infinite smile, turned from the ecological massacre and went off to find Leela. He hadn't gone more than a few meters, when a long Dalek confronted him. The Dalek set its eye stalk on the Time Lord. It slowly positioned its gun to a kill shot.

"_DOC-TOR." _it said.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Do it," the Doctor raised his arms, "you'll be the greatest hero on Skaro. All you need to do is..._FIRE!"_

Two energy beams came from opposite ends of the forest. The Dalek fired, but the beam flew over the Doctor's shoulder, missing him completely. The second beam soared over the Doctor's head from behind and struck the Dalek below the eye stalk, sending it reeling backwards into the jungle.

"You were right," Leela said throwing the palm-sized weapon on the ground, "that one was quite good."

"Glad you enjoyed yourself. I never liked those things much. Come now, let's get back to the TARDIS. The jungle will take care of itself."

Through the round hole of the eye stalk, the world seemed so much smaller. All of the beauty of the world was closed off, and all you could see was whatever was right in front of you. Clara wasn't mad that the Doctor had fired on her. She did what she needed to. What the Doctor didn't see was the Great Intelligence hovering just above his head, completely invisible to those who weren't looking for him.

"_SCANS SHOW THIS ONE IS ALL THAT RE-MAINS OF THE SCOUT-ING PAR-TY."_

"_HAVE HER MEMORIES OF THIS EVENT E-RASED. TAKE HER TO THE ASY-LUM FOR RE-HA-BIL-I-TATION._"

Her memories would be erased. But that was good. She could start the fight over again. She would beat the monsters this time.

Oswin Oswald would become human again.


	6. Chapter 6: Farewell, My Time Lord

_It was a dark and stormy night-nah, wait. I can't do that. That's way overdone._

It was, in reality, a very pleasant Sunday afternoon, but pleasant Sunday afternoons were rarely a good place for the start of a mystery. And when you make all your dough has a private eye, you need a mystery like a longshoreman needs a fleet of ships. Frobisher leaned back in his massive chair and stared out the window. He threw his fins behind his head and tried to relax. As a shapeshifter, his preferred form was that of a penguin. It got him strange looks on some planets, but on a planet like F'ronziaa, where he had recently set-up shop, a talking bird was probably the most ordinary thing you'd see all day.

_All great mysteries start somewhere,_ Frobisher said out loud to no one, _but today seemed like it'd be another day of dodgin' the electric bills. Not a single case had come through my door since I don't remember when. But that was always when disaster struck. Whenever the world seemed perfect and neatly tied up in a shiny bow, that's when you knew...all hell was gonna break loose."_

The door to Frobisher's office opened with a creak.

"Detective?"

A woman in long red dress strolled into the office like she owned the building lock, stock, and barrel. Her eyes gazed at the private eye penguin through the black veil that dangled under her pillbox hat.

_The dame was beautiful, no doubt about it. But I had learned my lesson long ago to never mess around with clients, and don't get involved with bipeds,_ Frobisher narrated to himself.

"That's me, sweetheart," the detective said out loud, "what can I do for ya?"

"I was wondering if you could help me find the Doctor," she said with a smile that could fell an ox.

"The doctor? Try a couple blocks away. This ain't the phone book. And don't all you kids today got them, ah, whaddayacall'em? Ginggle-brain implants?"

"Sorry, Chilly Willy, I'm not talking about _a _Doctor," she threw a manila folder onto the desk, "I'm talking about _the _Doctor."

_The dame had sharp brain and a bad attitude. I was starting to like her quite a bit. I opened the folder that she had dropped in front of me, and wouldn't ya know it. Staring back at me with that mess of curly, carrot colored hair and that coat made out of a rainbow's puke, was a picture of the Doc. Even though I didn't know for sure, I had a hunch that this dame must've been runnin' with the Doc just like I had been for awhile. Why she needed to track him down, I didn't have a clue. But somethin' in my gut told me she was on the level._

"Alright, kid," Frobisher said looking through the files, "I'll take the case, but you gotta remember, findin' the Doctor can be like lookin' for a needle in a haystack. 'Cept the haystack is the size of the whole flippin' galaxy."

"Lucky for you, I brought a few leads," the woman laid out three newspaper clippings on Frobisher's desk. Each one had large headline sprawled across the top. One read, **_Institute of Transportation Leaps Through Time,_**the second read, **_Authorities Stumped by Stolen Sonic Weapons_****,**and the final one read, **_143-year-old wins Lottery for the Third Time._**

"You think the Doctor had something to do with all of these?" Frobisher asked, trying to figure out how a 143-year-old could get so lucky.

"Maybe, or maybe it's the kind of thing that could draw the Doctor's attention to this planet. Either way, we should start investigating. We're bound to find him somewhere."

The woman headed for the door.

"We'll start with the old woman tomorrow," she said.

"Whoa, 'we'? I work alone, sweetheart."

"Frobisher, you know full well that I'm not your typical client, so please, don't treat me like one. The name's Oswald by the way. Clara Oswald."

Frobisher watched the shadow through the door way stroll out of sight.

_So, there was my new case: an old lady, some illegal weapons, and a bit of time travel. Maybe they were all connected, maybe they had nothin' to do with each other. I guess I was about to find out._

A penguin outside of a cold climate will almost always look odd, but Frobisher looked particularly strange waddling down the sidewalk of Starbriar Park, the gated hover community for retired senior citizens. In order to blend in as he got closer to the house of Agatha Bindle, the oddly lucky lottery winner, he shifted his form into that of a little girl with bright red hair, freckles, and gap teeth, dressed in a the light blue uniform of an Astro Scout.

_The old lady's neighborhood looked like the kinda place that could act as a useful sleeping aid. Each of the houses was a cookie cutter copy of the one next to it. Except the one that belonged to the old lady, no, her's stood out. It was bright pink with yellow shutters. The lawn was covered in every type of tacky lawn decoration you could imagine. You could barely see the grass under all the cheap plastic. Waiting for me by the fence was my new lady friend. This time, Ms. Oswald wore a green floral dress. The dame with the quip on her lips and the devil in her smile had vanished. She fit right in with the surroundings._

Frobisher felt rather proud of his hard boiled, yet somewhat ludicrous narration.

"Hiya, sweetheart, wanna buy some cookies?"

Clara was startled by the deep voicing coming from the small girl standing next to her.

"You know we're going to be found out in less than a moment if you talk to her like that," Clara said with her arms crossed.

"Don't worry, I got a perfect excuse."

"Which is?"

"I've got a really bad cold."

Clara stared at the fake little girl and sighed.

"C'mon, let's get this over with."

_As we walked up to the old lady's door, I got this strange feeling that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. There was something off about this place. Something in my guy told me trouble was waiting for us behind that pink door._

Frobisher's narration was interrupted by Clara's rapid knocks on the door.

The door creaked open, and Agatha Bindle stuck her wrinkled head out the crack in the door.

"Can I help you?"

"Hello ma'am," Clara said with the brightest smile in the galaxy, "my sister was wondering if you'd like to buy some Astro Scout cookies?"

"Yeah, they're pretty tasty if ya ask me!" Frobisher chimed in.

"Oh dear," the old woman said while looking down at what appeared to be a little girl, "it sounds like you've got a very bad cold, young lady."

"I sure do, darlin'" Frobisher made a disgusting, and theatrical, cough.

Agatha shuffled her old feet and pushed the door open as an invitation to enter.

"Let me just get my wallet and I'll get you a nice tall glass of orange juice."

With Agatha Bindle gone, Clara and Frobisher began their investigation of the first room. Much like the front lawn, it was filled with tacky decorations. Cat statues and clocks and paintings stared at Frobisher and Clara. The floral print of the couches clashed against the red and black zig-zag pattern of the carpet.

"Wait here," Clara began to wander down the hallway, "ma'am, I'm going to use your bathroom if that's alright!"

"That's fine deary!"

_This whole investigation was gettin' weirder and weirder. This Clara character clearly didn't need me around to do any of the heavy liftin' for her, so why was I here? What was the big scheme? Agatha Bindle shuffled back into the room, still wearing her fuzzy green bathrobe and a toothless smile. In her hand was a tall glass of OJ. I wasn't thirsty, but I had to keep up my cover as best I could, so I grabbed the glass and took a swig. Their was so much pulp, I was practically eating a whole orange. I felt dizzy and there was an pain in my stomach as soon as the juice went down my throat. I had been poisoned!_

Frobisher dropped the glass in his tiny hands. The room began to spin, faster and faster. He could feel his body losing shape, but he held himself together.

"Don't worry deary. You're so small that the poison will go through your system in no time."

He had to think quickly. Poison animals. What poison animals could he take the shape of. His cover was blown so there was nothing to fear now. His body shrunk and condensed into the shape of a bright purple duck with five legs and a horn; making himself into a tyilup was his only option. The tyilup was once the considered the most poisonous species of bird in the galaxy until they all went extinct.

"Sorry, sweetheart, I'm a pretty lucky duck," Frobisher said, wishing someone had been nearby to appreciate how clever he'd been. He fluttered across the room to attack the Agatha, but she snatched him out of the air by his throat with incredible speed. Agatha hoisted him into the air and slammed him down so hard that he went smashing through the floor of the house and down into the basement below. When Frobisher managed to stand again, back in the form of a penguin, he realized the basement was actually a concrete bunker that was twice the size of the house itself. On the walls was an infinite cache of sonic weapons and in the center of the room, providing light for every corner, was a pair of bright blue police boxes connected by an swirling storm cloud of orange and black energy. From inside the boxes, Frobisher could hear the screams of two different voices that were crying out in pain.

"Do you like it? My own personal time rift." Agatha Bindle leaped through the recently added hole in the ceiling, "a man in black and a top hat came to me and said 'General Agatha Bindle, the Masque of Death, you were once the most powerful despot in the galaxy, how would you liked to be feared again?'"

Agatha removed her robe and stood up straight. She was wearing black armor with a crimson skull painted on the chest.

"And I said, 'of course young man, but what's the catch?' and he said, 'simply watch over these two generators and they will give you access to every moment in history, ever.'"

Agatha rubbed her hand across one of the two trapped TARDISes.

"Beautiful machinery, isn't it? And so simple to use too. I simply think and jump. And once I've, say, stolen a shipment of sonic weapons, or discovered the winning lottery numbers for the next three years, it pops me right back. The screaming would be off putting if I weren't so used hearing that sort of thing."

_My head kept on spinning. The fall had taken a lot outta me. The Doc was trapped, and even if my brains weren't scrambled like a lousy omelet, I wouldn't even know where to begin helping him. The crazy old broad came closer, her clenched fists looked like a pair of rocks ready to pummel me. All I could focus on was that skull, blood red, telling me that death was inescapable. I closed my eyes. A screeching blast blared through my ears, followed by a ringing, and a muffled voice._

"Frobisher! I'm so sorry for leaving you up there! Are you alright?" the voice in Frobisher's ears slowly became more and more clear. He looked around to see Agatha Bindle smashed into the concrete wall, and Clara with a pair of sonic weapons in her hands.

"Holy cats, kid," Frobisher said, "that was incredible."

Clara smiled, then looked up at the swirling vortex of time. She took a deep breath and looked back at Frobisher.

"I'll make sure this one gets home. He's got Tegan and Nyssa waiting for him, you take care of the other Doctor."

"Wait, this is way too much for me to take in at once here, what's going on?"

Clara gave Frobisher a peck on the cheek.

"It's a long story, but it's one that'll have to stay a mystery."

Before Frobisher could ask anymore, Clara jumped into the storm of time which collapsed on itself the minute she entered it. One of the TARDISes slowly faded away with a wheezing sound. The other one's door opened, and the Doctor popped his head out.

"Frobisher?" he said weakly, "what the devil is going on?"

"Ah, Doc, it's a long story...but basically," he thought of the last words Clara spoke to him, "basically, I saved your life...again."

The Doctor and Frobisher took off in the TARDIS, leaving the destroyed basement behind.

_There are a million tales in the ol' time stream. This is just one of 'em. The one about the Clara Oswald. The bravest dame I've ever met._


	7. Chapter 7: Escape from Shada

"_If the stars could scream, their cries would be echoing through the infinite universe, through the hearts of every living being, against every burning star, and circling back again._

_The Time Lords and the Daleks._

_One side wins, one side loses. The cycle spins back again and again. The snake devours its own tail. Victories and defeats blend together into an opaque darkness of carnage and violence until the canvas of the cosmos is covered in this gruesome smear. The galactic holocaust they have created will remain on the skin of reality as a grisly scar, a warning that shouts 'this is the cost of war.'_

_It is a warning that will go unheeded._

_The only hero of this conflict will be the one to wipe it all away._

_And even then, this hero's brave deed would be just another fallacy of war."_

_-Excerpt from "The History of the Time War"_

Though the exact date is impossible to comprehend by human understandings, somewhere in the middle of the Time War the Doctor found himself at the mercy of the Daleks. He had been captured, but not before crushing the Dalek Emperor's entire fleet. How the Doctor managed to accomplish this completely on his own, was simple. He drained the power of the stars in a nearby constellation, depicting the defeat of the Sontaran general Grek, into the power cells of his ship's hypothetical engines and forced the energy to vent into the surrounding area, trapping the fleet in a state of quantum nonexistence. The Daleks aboard those ships will spend eternity flittering between real and unreal, moving faster than the beating wings of a humming bird, unable to be whole again.

The Doctor's ship crash landed on a passing Battle Asteroid which had arrived to supply reinforcements to the Daleks.

"Just my luck," the Doctor said to himself. Before losing consciousness he heard the angry squawks of a fleet of Daleks as they carved open the hull of the ship.

The capturing of the Doctor was considered a major military triumph for the Dalek Empire. They had omitted the fact that his capture came by sheer luck, but their enthusiasm for their triumph could not be overshadowed by something as trivial as the "truth."

Endless debates in the Dalek parliament were held on what the fate of this Time Lord, the Oncoming Storm, the Predator of the Daleks should be. Ultimately, they decided that the Doctor was worth far more to them alive than dead. They knew that his loyalties to his own people often wavered, and perhaps it could be exploited.

From experience, they knew that the Doctor could not be held by any cage of prison they had built, but suddenly, a prize once thought useless in the war could be put to good use. To trap a Time Lord, it would take something built by a Time Lord.

The Doctor was locked away in the deepest cell of Shada, the prison of the Time Lords.

The cell was not what you'd imagine it to be, dank and rat-infested, with a perpetual dripping that slowly drove the prisoner mad. Instead, the room was a bright, empty space with no definable walls or floors or any geometrical definition. The Doctor floated through the nothing with his eyes closed. Even with through his eyelids, he could feel the stinging of searing light that slowly cooked and dried his eyes. Sleep was nearly impossible with the red light that reflected against his shut eyes. Time meant nothing in this place. He did not hunger or thirst, he simply existed in a torturous spotlight. Darkness, even for a second, was all the Doctor wanted.

And finally, after being held prisoner for somewhere between 100 seconds to 100 years, the darkness came.

The light vanished from the room and the Doctor found himself facedown on a cold metal floor. He shut his eyes and savored the perfect black around him. Laughter echoed through the chamber as he slowly got to his feet. He was without a TARDIS, a sonic screwdriver, or a decent pair of shoes, but the light was gone. His mind was clear. He could try to escape.

"Thrilled to hear you so happy, my old chum," a voice said. The sound of which echoed through the chamber.

A sliver of light cracked through the thick darkness revealing a lonely shilloute.

"Well, I certainly hope you don't expect me to carry you out of here, Doctor. Time is of the essence!"

Barefoot and battered, the Doctor staggered towards the light. His savior wore a dark cloak that covered his entire body.

"Who," the Doctor's throat was very dry, each word felt like sand along his throat "who are you?"

His rescuer pulled down his hood to reveal a bald head that was practically a perfect circle.

"Hello again, Doctor!"

Mortimus, the Meddling Monk, the last person the Doctor expected to stick his neck out for anyone or anything.

"How…why?"

The Doctor's confusion and dry mouth made him keep his statements brief.

"How is this daring rescue attempt going to succeed? Quite simple my friend, but I'll explain along the way."

The once crimson and purple halls of Shada had been turned a solid copper color. The Monk led the Doctor through the cavernous passage to the gravity lift opposite the doorway. Their walk took them past two rows of Dalek sentries that had been wrapped and crushed in tentacles that were the color of dying leaves.

"As you can see, I spent a bit of time helping an Axon find a new planet to devour. I was running a planetary real estate business which, well, in this galactic economy, it isn't my fault that the property didn't technically 'exist,' but I digress, I accepted a bit of Axonite as a finders fee for a planet that was…gently inhabited."

The Doctor was weak from his imprisonment, so he didn't have the strength to throw the Monk into his former cell and leave him there as punishment for that statement.

The lift rose and they arrived in the central hub of Shada. Levels and levels of metal cubes forged from dwarf star metal kept the most notorious enemies of Skaro and its citizens locked away. Startled, the Doctor suddenly realized how exposed he and his unfortunate savior were, surrounded by thousands of Daleks.

"I can tell by the look on your face you're worried about all of these nasty Daleks around us," the Monk said. He pulled up his sleeve and revealed a thin golden bracelet with ornate Gallifreyean carvings.

"A Time Ring fitted with a high-level perception filter," he said, "they won't notice us at all."

"Yes, but if any of these Daleks perform a biomass scan, they'll notice us right away. They may not see us, but they'll know we're here!" the Doctor's voice cracked as he spoke. He slowly felt the strength of his voice and his body returning.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes," the Monk waved his hands away to brush the Doctor's concern out of the air.

"Which is why, Doctor, the key to a good jailbreak is to…break the jail."

The electric whirr of Shada suddenly cut out. Dalek eyestalks darted back and forth in the hopes of finding a solution to their problem.

"E-MER-GEN-CY!" they began to shout one-by-one. The silver boxes opened all in unison with a terrible hiss and every type of being from every corner of the galaxy was unleashed. Some were immediately cut down in a hail of laser fire from nearby Daleks. A pair of Zygons and a Draconian lifted a Dalek and hurled him over the edge of their level, sending it plummeting down twenty stories. A pack of Juldoon knocked the Doctor the Monk to the ground without actually noticing their presence. Grabbing his arm, the Doctor pulled his rescuer up and began to run.

"Wait! Wait!" the former faux Monk stopped in his tracks at one particular cell, "we need to wait for my 'inside man' as they say in those delightful Earth films."

The Monk's inside man was, in fact, a woman. She sat cross-legged with a statue-like stillness. She did not even making the necessary movements for breathing. In Earth years, she looked to be somewhere in her twenties, but the Doctor was making this assumption purely by her height. Her face was covered in a golden mask, shaped like the face of an Axon.

"Is she-?" the Doctor said.

"An Axon? Not at all. But, she was a former employee of the Axon I had as a client, until I decided to employ her myself. I remembered how useful those companions were for you, so I decided to pick one up of my very own."

The Monk leaned closer to the Doctor and whispered in his ear.

"Frankly, the mask gives me the willies, but she likes wearing it as a…sentimental thing, I suppose. She doesn't mind when I leave laundry around my TARDIS, so I don't complain either."

The woman stood and stared at the Doctor through the masks blank expression. Her head tilted slightly making her look a curious cat, or a lion sizing up her prey, but the blank expression of the mask did not provide any clue as to whether she was a friend or a foe. She marched past both men; her pace did not care if either man kept up. They moved quickly through the surrounding riot. Daleks fired randomly while prisoners destroyed anything they could get their hands on.

"Well, Mortimus, this rescue is going splendidly. Simply spectacular, I must say. If the sporadic hail of Dalek lasers doesn't kill us, I'm sure the violent criminals will!"

"Oh, Doctor, you're always such a pessimist! Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I must have left it back in my cell," the Doctor looked around, it seemed as though they were only closer to the center of the prison.

"Where, exactly, are we going?"

"I haven't the foggiest," the Monk said with a broad smile.

"You…haven't…the foggiest?" rarely had the Doctor heard a phrase that made him feel like he needed to have a good sit for a few minutes.

"Oh, none at all, I'm following her. She's been here for three months, going over the place, finding weaknesses."

The Monk had to stifle his giggle after the woman lifted her arm and stopped moving. She turned her head to look at the blank wall. Her hand reached out and rubbed along the surface of the wall in the shape of a circle. A small triangle dissolved into the wall. The woman held out her hand in front of The Monk's face. He gave her an orange ball, which the Doctor recognized as a piece of Axonite. The woman placed it gently into the triangular opening. Tiny tendrils burst from the orange skin as the material contorted until it fit the exact shape of the opening. The wall faded away, leaving a hallway that was crowded with aliens of different species, each with Dalek eye stalks protruding from their foreheads.

"Watch her work," the Monk said.

The woman ran forward toward two Slitheen who had reached out their green claws. She dropped to the floor and sliced both of their arms with a pair of golden daggers. She stood and spun to kick a Draconian in the stomach, knocking him backwards into a trio of Ood. A man with a sword in a dashing cape, who the Doctor assumed must have been from Pendalon, brought his sword down towards the woman's head, but she parried it away with one knife, and sliced off the eye stalk with the other. After the flurry of blades was complete, she stood in the middle of her violent work and breathed deeply.

"If we're done with the slaughter, can we move on, please?" the Doctor walked through the door, followed closely by his two companions. They reentered the same room.

"This can't be right…" the Doctor said in a whisper. The woman looked around the hall. Though her face didn't say it, she looked confused.

"Nonsense, you know Time Lords have no sense for aesthetics, they probably just built a series of identical hallways!" the Monk ran ahead, through the door, and reentered the room through the door behind the Doctor.

"Oh. Oh this can't be right at all."

The Doctor dropped to the ground and tapped his knuckles against the floor. He spun in a circle with his pointer finger sticking out and popped it into his mouth to taste the air for quantum residue.

"It's a Möbius Snare," the Doctor said with authority.

"A Moe-what?"

"A Möbius Snare. Quite simply, it traps you in an infinite loop. We're running through a hallway that is essentially a circle. It will continue to loop us back to this point. Rather brilliant actually. A very simple trap. It can be broken though."

"I was wondering when you'd finally get around the breaking bit. Go on!"

"Imagine a circle. Now, the only way to break a circle is to rip it somehow. Tear it, and straighten it out. In this case, the only thing that could rip it would be a reality fluctuation. Something like two exact entities that occupy the same space."

The Doctor looked at the doorway, then at Mortimus.

"How quickly can you run?"

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"It will take at least two of us merging with our looped selves to make this happen."

The woman placed her hand on the Doctor's shoulders, and silently nodded. The three of them began to run. The hallway repeated itself three, four, five times. As they began to move faster, they would catch a brief glimpse of themselves as they walked through the doorway at the other end of the hall. Each pass through the loop moved them a little closer. From behind, the Doctor could hear Mortimus' breath getting shorter and shorter with each step.

As they entered the door for what felt like the twentieth loop, the Doctor felt a cold, invisible hand grab him by the throat and pull him back through the door way. He was slammed against the wall and found himself face-to-face with a pale faced man in a top hat.

The man opened his mouth to reveal rows and rows of razor edged teeth. Before he could bite into the Doctor's throat, Mortimus and the woman emerged, from both doors at once. Two of them came back through the door the Doctor was pulled from, while the other two came from the opposite hall, with had their own Doctor.

"I assume you have a clever explanation for this as well, Doctor?" the Mortimus at the end of the hallway said when he laid eyes upon the gaping maw of the well dressed man.

The Doctor tried to speak, but the hands were wrapped too tightly around his throat. Shadowy tentacles tore through the fine coat on the deadly stranger's back and launched themselves outward, ensnaring each of the copies. The Doctor quickly reached out his hand for himself, they touched and a blinding flash shot from their bodies. The room shook with the vibrations of two timelines merging. Both Doctors felt as though a surge of lightning was shooting through his body. They opened their mouths to scream, but there was no sound until the two finally became one.

The shaking of time itself forced the stranger to release his captives as he regained his footing. The Monk and his partner had been merged back into one entity. The trap had been severed. Through the sleeve of the Monk's cloak, his Time Ring began to glow.

"They're coming," he shouted, "everyone needs to grab on!"

The Doctor looked around the room to find the dark stranger. He could feel a chill in the air, like a breath on his neck. The stranger seemed to be just out of reach. He turned over his shoulder and was face-to-face with golden eyes. The Monk's partner stared at him. Through the mask, the Doctor heard a kind voice whisper to him.

"Run…clever boy…"

The masked woman pushed the Doctor back to the Monk's waiting arms. Behind her, the dark shadow began to bloom like a terrible forest in a nightmare spring. The Doctor reached out his hand for her, but the Monk held him back. Before the Time Ring blinked them both out of Shada, the Doctor watched as the woman turned to the darkness and ran towards it with both of her knives slicing away at its ebony grasp.

The walls of Shada were now a circular room colored red and gold. In the center, a massive wooden table sat. Two Time Lords were at either end of the table. Their grand collars stood high above their heads and made them appear to be colossal in height, in spite of the fact that they were both sitting.

"Here he is," the Monk said, presenting the Doctor proudly, "Theta Sigma, the Doctor."

"Welcome back, Doctor," one of the Time Lords said with a rigid smirk.

"We do hope we won't have to rescue you again," the other Time Lord said.

The Doctor remained silent. His thoughts were with the golden mask which showed no expression. What had she been feeling in those last moments?

"Now," the Monk said, "I do believe you two owe me something?"

The Doctor scoffed.

"Of course they do," he muttered, "there had to be something in it for you."

"That's just good business, old friend," the Monk said.

"Yes, you were promised a new TARDIS and permission to be relieved of service in our excursion with the Daleks," one of the Time Lords stated.

The word "excursion" made the Doctor sick to his stomach. To call such a travesty, such a waste of life an "excursion" was disgusting.

"Unfortunately," the Time Lord continued, "since his resurrection, Lord President Rassilon has made it very clear he does not want anyone abandoning the war effort. Your request has been denied."

"But," the Monk struggled for the words to express his outrage, "I-I did what you promised! I did the impossible! I escaped SHADA!"

"And we thank you dearly, but we're afraid your other…undesirable qualities will become a problem for the new Time Lord paradigm."

"What are you saying? What does that mean?"

The Monk never received an answer. His body froze and blew away in small atoms, like specks of dust in sunlight.

"Why did you do that?" the Doctor asked, barely controlling his rage.

"He was unfit to carry on as a Time Lord," the two Time Lords stood from their chairs, "surely you can see that, Doctor. Would you not agree that your own life is of more value than his?"

_No _the Doctor thought to himself. _He was worth more than all of you._

Outside the war raged on. Time was ending. And somewhere, deep in his mind, the Doctor began to wonder if he still deserved his chosen name.

Could he ever look at what he had done, what he had allowed to happen, and still call himself "the Doctor"?


End file.
